Nandini sundara biography of george

Publications [ edit ]. Personal life [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Archived from the original on 6 August Nandini Sundar". Retrieved 11 November The Hindu. The Indian Express. Retrieved 5 April Archived from the original on 19 November Retrieved 19 November Times Higher Education. ISSN X. Would you suggest that activism and theory are necessarily complementary in nature?

Nandini sundara biography of george: Nandini meets Rajarajan, explains

Sometimes you have to engage in activism not as a researcher, but as a citizen. But since we teach equality, liberty and democracy as social scientists, I think we also have a duty to try and examine our own practice in these spheres. Q: Can you tell us about the PIL? How did the idea come about? How was the PIL planned and how did you all come together?

Also, which lawyers did you approach? The PIL was essentially the product of the second fact finding. Farah had been engaged in the Bilkis Bano case in Gujarat for a long time first riot-related rape case conviction in Gujarat which demanded lots of court visits. Therefore, three of us decided to independently file that PIL. Usha [Ramanathan] whose help I had sought for discussing our next step knew the work of Ashish Chugh who was then a junior to Mr.

She suggested that if Mr. Andhyarujina could be convinced and if he found potential in the case, then we had a good chance before the Courts. He was very sweet and agreed to our proposal.

Nandini sundara biography of george: Her origins are mysterious

May 17 was the day of our first hearing. Andhyarujina argued and the court issued the notice but without giving any deadline. That was the first time that any State- body acknowledged the occurrences of violations bu the Judum. The fact that the event was also covered by the radio made us feel that the PIL was finally making some sort of difference.

This was the first large-scale public rally where people spoke openly about what was happening to them. Until that time people were scared to even raise the topic for discussion so much so that if you happened to visit the camps, people would try to dissociate themselves from the Judum: they would say that they came there voluntarily. Nobody was ready to talk about what had actually happened.

The judum leaders maintained constant vigilance regarding what people were saying. The rally found people forwarding letters to Manish Kunjam, CPI leader, explaining all that had happened in their village. So, this was the first time that we had some statements from villagers themselves as till then we only had reports from fact-finding exercises.

We discussed it with the CPI in Delhi and they decided that three persons from Bastar who themselves had been affected, would file the petition. So, a companion petition was filed in August, The first hearing was in October and we had more than a testimonies which we used in the petition. Many of these testimonies were on little scraps of paper explaining what had happened.

Nitya Ramakrishnan drafted the petition and Mr. Desai and Nitya have been deeply involved throughout, working pro bono as have all the lawyers on this case. The first case was only against the Government of Chhattisgarh, while the second case was against the Government of Chhattisgarh and Union of India. Both the cases were clubbed together. Things worked out really well because Mr.

Desai and Mr. TR Andhyarujina knew each other. For example, it sometimes happened that both would come and argue while sometimes only one would come and argue on behalf of both. Sometimes we had embarrassing situations when both would give conference time at the same time, but we somehow managed and they were very kind. In October the court issued notice on the second petition and in March they asked the NHRC to inquire into it.

The NHRC enquiry was conducted in the summer of and the resultant report was somehow an attempt to white-wash the happenings. They sent a team of 16 policemen. Justice Balakrishnan analysed the report by reading against the grain in a way and realised the enormity of the situation. At that time I was disheartened and even considered giving up because the NHRC report had countered all our efforts, but Mr.

Desai, Nitya, Menaka [Guruswamy] were against surrendering and urged me to use the report and use the points to build our own case. Following this, we filed the counter-arguments mentioning the points on which we agreed or disagreed with the NHRC observations. The situation was so bad that they could not really hide it and there were lots of discrepancies between what they actually found — evidence of large scale burning — and their final conclusions.

Nothing eventful happened between October and That is why there is a competition for being exploited.

Nandini sundara biography of george: AR Venkatachalapathy, Professor, Madras Institute

That is why even low paid jobs and work conditions are not the obstacles for people to leave the exact work. They are continuing to doing their job because they need to. And in a considerable extent, they are afraid of loosing it and do not fighting for theirs rights. And the governmental is satisfied with these conditions as well.

A little bit pessimistic, but as it is. Liz Vergara UC Berkeley : I agree that it is important to maintain a stance of perceived neutrality by power holders such as the media, yet I think in some ways this is difficult because the media which pushes neutral scholars to simplify topics or choose sides rather than present them in their full complexity.

It is difficult, for this reason, to be both a mediatique and a scholar, at least simultaneously. I think that as researchers, sociologists must present the complex realities, or inconvenient truths as Bello framed it. This is what separates the activist from the public sociologist. However, I might say that it depends on different publics to whom you present your ideas.

As it is said, simple sentences is even harder to build. David Torres UC Berkeley : Liz, you bring up a very interesting point on what a sociologist should do. I am student from Berkeley, and we have discussed what Bello says is the responsibility of a sociologist—presenting inconvenient truths. For Bello, this truth has to be validated in order to be accepted.

Nadiaa, you raise the issue of the importance of professional sociology in order to gain legitimacy and an expertise. In the US, professional sociology is overly emphasized and students who study this are put through the university pedagogy seem to get detached from the publics as they focus on being professional and academic. It is only when they are practicing their own research, such as in a PHD program, that they can reignite their passion with working with publics—this is after many years of formal education.

In the case with Nandini Sundar, she seems to have some characteristics in all the four types of sociology described by Prof. Her engagement within the social minefield of vigilante groups sponsored by the government, the Maoists, and media appearances characterizes her involvement in Public sociology. Her work in the Supreme Court is her Policy Sociology.

With all her work, she gains a new perspectives that allow her to be critical on whats going on. And she wishes she had more time to be more professional and write academic articles. I think with any work you do, there will always be involvement in all the different types of sociology, but for Public Sociology, there has to be interaction and accountability between the public and the sociologist.

Her lecture set the scene for those of us not familiar with the idea of public sociology, and led us to a broader discussion of what public sociology is and can be. As with many of the other groups, we were drawn towards contextualizing the discussion: Are there public sociologists like Sundar in Norway, and should we strive towards doing sociology the way she does?

We discussed to great lengths whether this active and deep engagement with publics and with politics is a strength or weakness for the individual sociologist. We also discussed the boundaries between policy and public sociology; not always easy to separate in our local context. Even though Burawoy argues that professional, public, policy and critical sociologists together nandini sundara biography of george up the sociological division of labour, the Norwegian sociological scene forces us to see these four as being parts of every individual sociologist as well.

Is a sociologist turned activist still a sociologist? Can sociology survive if it becomes a cover for left-wing activism and struggle? On these points, we could not agree or conclude. We could, however, all agree that the first three lectures of Public Sociology Live were very inspirational. Working as a sociologist in the circumstances that Sundar does, demands a lot of courage.

We discussed whether it is our privileged position as sociologists in a rich welfare state in the west that hinders us in taking the same steps as she does. Why are Norwegian sociologists not engaging in pressing national equality questions? We could be working with the local Roma population, or with Palestinian asylum seekers who have built a camp in the centre of Oslo protesting the treatment they have received from the Norwegian government.

But few of us do. Do sociologists have a moral obligation to? Niels Christie is one of the Norwegian scholars who has taken the furthest steps towards being a public criminologist. His engagement with publics goes both ways, and he has been especially active in encouraging academics to write in an accessible style. To secure a simple and understandable language, he writes his texts in English, his second language, and then translates it to Norwegian, his mother tongue.

In this way, he believes that he is able to capture the essence of the argument, while keeping it simple.

Nandini sundara biography of george: He's a very innocent and selfless

We wanted to share this with you all, because we think it might be relevant for those engaging in public sociology, grappling with the translation problem between sociological language and ordinary language. Michael Burawoy UC Berkeley : Delighted that Oslo, you are on board — where would we be without a welfare state as point of comparison? Besides there is a long history of public sociology in Norway that one can appeal too, even if today a lot of it has been eclipsed.

Time for revival? It seems that because of this, sociologists have the opportunity luxury to remain within the confines of the academy and engage mostly with academic colleagues rather than disadvantaged publics. In fact, for her, a retreat into the professional realm is a tremendous gift, as it provides an opportunity for reflection.

Perhaps her engagement with marginalized publics is related to the current division of labor within sociology in India. In the US where professional sociology is so dominant, it does seem that the manifestation of a dialogue with a disadvantaged public does require extra effort. Whether or not it is a question of morality, I am not sure. But if sociologists are in the business of protecting civil society, then engagement with the most marginalized groups seems absolutely necessary.

And privileged for being part of this academic bubble too! I am confused here too: first, you suggest that US sociologists have the luxury to engage mostly w academic sociologists so, your focus is on the exchange of information among academics but then you talk about the research Sundar conducted…. Thanks Keli for making me think about all this!

Many sociologists go into the field, extract data, come back to the bubble and get grants, money, publications, recognition and develop a huge ego too! Sundar has long been open about the issue of academic publication. Inshe told Times Advanced Education that the blackout in Cashmere had been a "devastating blow," roam the situation has worsened nationwide in that Modi's election inand lapse the lack of liberties could achieve India's attempts at climbing university rankings.

In summershe submitted dialect trig paper on academic freedom to description United Nations. Sundar is married to Siddharth Varadarajan, former chief editor of The Hindu —an Indian English-language national newspaper—and a instauration editor of The Wire. She has an superior sister, Aparna, who is also out social activist. Nandini sundara biography Nandini Sundar Social Sciences Activist Nandini Sundar born is an Indian professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics [1] whose research interests include political sociology, law, and inequality.

Archived from the original subsidize 6 August